Scott William Carter

If you find yourself checking all the hot political websites four or five times a day about now, then you know you’re a political junkie.  Me, I’m glad it’s almost over, since I can then devout all that mental energy to something more germane to my own life.  If things go as the polls currently predict, it’s going to be a big, big day for Democrats tomorrow, but it will also be a sobering reality they inherit.  My big hope is that they don’t overreach, and a lot of that depends on how a President Obama governs.  But as one who’s been following his career since his 2004 convention speech, and having read both his books, I think it’s fair to say he won’t let the most extreme elements of his party run wild — which would then swing the pendulum back in a couple years and usher in another Gingrich-type revolution. 

I never bought into the foolish myth that he’s Jimmy Carter reincarnate or that he’s a pie-in-the sky dreamer.  What’s funny is that my take on him has always been the opposite:  he’s a hardened Chicago politician who, while leaning left in his positions, has a pragmatic approach to government.  I was proven right when I predicted a year ago he would win the nomination, and hopefully I’ll be proven right again.  There’s a lot of work for Democrats to do, as anyone who’s been living through the Bush years can attest, and it’s going to take a hardened Chicago politician with a pragmatic approach to get it done.

Now, onto the writing front . . .

The big news is that I’ve finished a new novel, another middle grade fantasy I’m very excited about (and if you’re wondering what a middle grade fantasy is, think Harry Potter or His Dark Materials).  It’s with the trusted First Reader (aka, the spouse) right now, and after that, I may get the reactions of a couple other readers, and then it’s onto the literary agent for her take.  Fingers crossed.  Although my first sold book, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, is straight YA, the first book I wrote — or at least the first book I decided was good enough to market — was also a middle grade fantasy.  That book wowed a lot of my first readers, landed me my first literary agent, and ended up with a few nibbles from editors, but, alas, no bites.  I still think that one’s a solid book, but I believe this one is even better, with lots of series potential.  It’s heavy on adventure, suspense, and secrets, which made it a lot of fun to write, and hopefully will make it fun to read as well.  We’ll see what others think.

Here at Mutterings Central, I’m pretty honest about my goal to eventually make a living writing fiction.  It doesn’t mean I’m unrealistic about it, or that I’d be willing to put my family at risk to achieve it, but it has been and will always be one of the ways in which I measure my success with my writing career.  It’s not the only way, nor is it the best way, but it is important.  It’s something I work toward — whether it takes years or decades. 

There’s certainly plenty of writers who don’t think this is important — in fact, I find it amusing how many writers who do make a living writing fiction discourage others from trying to do the same, not for nefarious reasons, but because they know how hard it is — but I don’t think I’d ever be satisfied until I at least gave it a shot. 

What some of these writers may not realize is that the goal of making a living from your craft is not a rational one, any more than trying to become an Olympic gold medalist in archery is rational.  Few worthwhile goals are rooted in rationality and logic.  So trying to dissuade someone by telling them it’s more logical to keep your day job and write on the side is rather pointless.  That’s like telling someone she should fall in love with the guy next door becuase he’s an accountant and good for her when her heart flutters at the sight of grease monkey down the street working on his Mustang.  And who wants to live in a world ruled completely by logic anyway? 

So that brings me to what I wanted to write about:  who to share your dreams and goals with, and how much you should choose to share.  Especially in the beginning, I’ve come to believe it’s very important that you get unflagging support from those you share your dreams with, and if you can’t get it, then it’s better that these people remain in the dark.  Let them think you just do that “writing thing” as a hobby —  or better yet, don’t let them know about your writing at all.  I’m now at a point where I’ve achieved enough success that it serves as a bullwark against the doubters and the skeptics, so I can afford to be a little more honest about it, but even I’m careful.  Why?  Well, let me tell you about an incident that happened to me a couple years ago at the day job.

I work at a small university in technology support, helping with online classes and such.  A new colleague, the director of a program on campus that also had some oversight with online classes, invited me out to coffee.  It was just a meet and greet deal, a chance to socialize.  This colleage, let’s call her Karen, said at one point, “Scott, you seem like a talented guy.  I’m surprised that you’re not in graduate school or trying to work your way up the ladder.  It seems like you could go far.”

I made the mistake at this point of letting my guard down.  (Maybe it was the poppyseeds in the muffin.)  I told her that while I liked my day job, and it was a perfect fit for me, my overall goal in life was to become a professional fiction writer, so I deliberately chose a job that would help me achieve that goal — a job, that while challenging and interesting, was one I could leave behind at 5 p.m with a clear conscience and maybe even squeeze some writing in during my lunch hour.  So while I didn’t fault anyone from “working their way up the ladder,” I focused that time and energy on my writing. 

She nodded in agreement, the conversation moved on, and I didn’t think anything more of it until about a year later.  My program was being transferred under another director, and unbeknownst to me, he asked a number of people on campus about me and what they thought of me — Karen being one of them.  Pretty much everybody said glowing things about me, but Karen had some “concerns.”  You see, we worked together on a grant-funded program a few months after that coffee meeting, and even though it seemed, from my point of view, to go quite well, apparently she didn’t think my work was up to snuff.  And she told my boss this.  In fact, she told him quite a bit more, that, in her words, “my priorities were elsewhere.”

This is not the way to get off on the right foot with your new boss.  At his request, we had an airing out meeting, the three of us, and when she got defensive — probably realizing how shallow her criticisms were — she brought up my comment about my goal of becoming a professional fiction writer.  It was a low blow, and I think my new boss saw through it, but the damage was done and the doubt was in his mind.  I had to make sure I worked extra hard to prove to him that her concerns, however irrational, were unfounded.  And I think I did.  But at a time when our university was making budget cuts, it was not the kind of thing I wanted in the back of my boss’s mind.

Both of those two have left the university (in fact Karen had lots of personal problems, which I think, in retrospect, contributed to her warped perceptions of me), but the lesson remains.  Be careful who you share your dreams with.  While I wish it weren’t true, there are lots of small-minded people out there who will try to use them against you if the need arises.  This isn’t to say you shouldn’t share your dreams and aspirations with others.  Sharing such things is how you develop meaningful friendships.  But it’s good to be cautious until you know whether someone can be trusted.

I’ve been following the Presidential election closely. In fact, I’ve gotten a bit obsessed about it — reading every article and blog out there, following the polls, even animatedly talking back to the radio spinheads when they say something I think is blatantly false (which, unfortunately, is quite often). This obsessiveness is a trait that can sometimes serve me well — like, with writing novels, which requires a certain amount of obsessiveness to be able to stay with a project of such magnitude — but it can also hurt me in other ways. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about politics more than writing, which is a sign that it’s time to put on the brakes. And that means engaging in a media and Internet blackout of anything related to the election. Cold turkey, in other words.

But first, before I do, I want to go on record with something. I’m not a registered Democrat, but I’m fairly progressive by nature. After having read his book, The Audacity of Hope, and following his career closely the last few years, I believe Barack Obama is, indeed, the real deal. He’s the best hope that America has for turning the page on the politics of the past and really charting a new direction for the country. Yes, he has a knack for oratory which is inspiring. But if you do the research, you’ll see that there’s a real man of substance there as well. Behind the lofty speeches, he’s also a pragmaticist, and after the last seven years, the country desperately needs a little more open-mindedness.

I wouldn’t even feel compelled to say this (I’m reticent to talk about anything related to politics here in Mutterings), but there’s a lot that’s happened in the campaign lately that makes me feel I should. That I should go on record. Maybe this is the childish part of me that wants to someday be able to say, see, I told you so, but it’s also a defiant act in a sense. Because until very recently, I thought if Obama failed to win the nomination, I could still vote for Hillary Clinton. But their actions the last few weeks have made this possibility go from probable to less likely to almost zero. Why? Because I think the Clintons believe the Democratic voters are too dumb to see through what they’re trying to do — which is to engage in Karl Rove style politics, smear Obama with anything that sticks whether it’s true or not, and then win ugly. If you think I’m exaggerating, you haven’t been following this closely.

I have really tried to give the Clintons the benefit of the doubt, since I do want to support them if they become the nominee (and see, I find myself referring to them as the Clintons even without realizing it, as in plural, which should tell you something), but even the mainstream media is finally starting to call them on their game. Not everyone, of course, because they’re pretty adept at playing the victim, but at least a few people are getting a clue.

Jonathon Alter at Newsweek makes this case much better than me in his article, “The Clintons’ Patronizing Strategy.”  Read the whole thing. You’ll see what I mean.

I’m betting Democrats are smart enough to see through their distortions. They’re betting that Democrats aren’t — and judging by the number of people who still believe Obama is a Muslim, because, gosh darn it, they saw it in an email, they may be right. I hope not. There were five glorious days between the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary that gave me hope that the country might be finally ready to turn the page on the politics of the past. I want that feeling back. I hope come November 2, I get it.

But now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, it’s no more politics for me. I’ve got to save my obsessiveness for other things. After all, I have a novel to write.

Change is hard. We all know that. If you’re like me, sometimes you feel like your life is a freight train on rails, and that the only way to change the train’s direction is to lay down new tracks. But here’s an exercise I thought of recently, a variation on ones you may have heard before, and I’ve found it to be a powerful tool for creating positive change in your life. It’s also the type of exercise that seems to fit well into the things I usually write.

Imagine today is your 100th birthday. You’re having a party, and you’re surrounded by people who care about you. A grandfather clock in the corner ticks away the passing moments. You’re sitting in a rocking chair looking at a birthday cake. It’s your favorite kind. You don’t see so well these days, but when you squint you can make out all those shining candles quite clearly. You’ve lived a long life, a life that is rich and textured with memories like patches on a quilt. However, you do have a few regrets, things you would change if you could. Perhaps you wish you would have tried a little harder to achieve some personal dream. Become a professional fiction writer? Made a go of being an actor in Hollywood? Taken a stab at being a dancer on Broadway? Maybe you wish you would have seen more of Europe. Or Australia. Maybe it’s something smaller. Did you ever rock climb? Did you ever learn to sail? Or sing? Maybe you wish you would have reached out to people who slipped by you, or mended fences with people who faded into your past. Perhaps you wish you would have gotten closer to a few people in particular, the kindred spirits you met along the way. Your soul would have been richer for it. You know it’s true.

It was a good life, a great life, but you know it could have been better. It could have been a lot better.

So you close your eyes, take as deep a breath as you can manage, and blow out all the candles. You make a wish, and the wish is this: you want to be transported back into the body of whatever age you are right now. You want one more chance to make the most of things. And when you open your eyes, you find that you have been miraculously transported through time. You find yourself sitting in this chair, staring at this computer screen, reading this message. A life of promise and possibilities lies before you, but it’s up to you to make things happen.

Somewhere in the future, the grandfather clock is ticking.

What are you going to do now?

Made a nice sale the other day to Asimov’s, my first to that magazine, and I’m still feeling a buzz about it. “The Tiger in the Garden” is set in the same world as “The Liberators,” which appeared in Analog last year. And like that story, this one also has a lot of parallels to current events. I’m starting to think there’s a novel waiting for me in that world.

***

So I was perusing a bargain book table at a Rather Large Retailer Who Shall Remain Nameless and I came across some very nice hardback editions of some classics — Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and other wonderful books that have entered the public domain. I’m always on the lookout for handsome books to add to my collection at affordable prices, especially if I can replace an old paperback.

I picked up Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and thought it odd that the book was a little light in terms of the number of pages. And here’s the shocking the part, the part that both saddens and disgusts me: when I opened the book, I saw, under Mark Twain’s name, a line that read “as retold by . . .“ followed by a writer I’d never heard of.

I couldn’t believe it. I can at least fathom an abridged book (though I never read them if I can help it), especially if it was approved by the author, because that’s generally just taking out some of the author’s own words. But when someone takes a book and actually retells it, recasting it in a different style or voice, that’s nothing short of abominable. Further inspection revealed that these books were geared toward children, but come on, folks, this book was written for young adults as it is! If you don’t think your kids are ready to tackle it on their own, read it to them, or better yet, steer them to books they are ready to read. But don’t have them read some butchered version of one of the great classics of American literature. I would never have wanted my first experience with that book to be anything other than what Samuel Clemens intended it to be.

What’s next, Shakespeare?

My friend Matt Cheney had some interesting things to say on his blog concerning the overuse of the term “self-indulgent” among reviewers. Although I don’t have much to add to that discussion — chiefly because I think of a review as just another artistic creation that often has little do with the work being reviewed — it did get me thinking about what I really respond to as a reader, and what I think your average reader responds to in fiction. And for the sake of discussion, let’s define “average readers” as people who love good fiction but who aren’t writers and don’t give a rat’s ass whether a particular story should be defined as slipstream or modern fantasy, or whether third person limited point of view is more distancing than first person point of view. People who just want a good tale. And that’s heart.

Oh, yes, I can hear the snickering from the fellows in the back row dressed in black turtlenecks, obscured by their haze of cigarette smoke, and trading witty barbs that are just regurgitations of something Nietzsche said much better. Yes, heart. It’s easy to toss that off that as sentimental nonsense, but great fiction, fiction that is remembered for more than a few weeks, that keeps coming back when stories that are far more clever (which might be another way to define self-indulgent) with their structure or their style become part of a great blur of other clever stories, is fiction that moves you in some way.

It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you stay up until the first gray light of dawn just to find out what happens next.

I guess that’s my chief complaint about a lot of what’s called experimental fiction these days. While I don’t mind a nonconventional story structure or style, I find that 90% of the time these stories do nothing for me emotionally. And therefore they’re quickly forgotten. A story like “The Cold Equations” still gets to me after all these years, despite its almost total lack of ornament, because it has heart. “Flowers for Algernon” is one my favorite stories, not because it’s nonconventional, which it certainly is, but because it moved me to tears when I read it. Oh,
gosh. Did I admit that? I’m a man who cried at something he read? Well, yeah, that’s the whole damn point. I read because I want to feel like I’m not alone, that other people share my misery, my joy, my loneliness, that I’m part of something larger than myself.

Now, as a writer, how do you achieve that? How do you move readers to laughter or to tears? I have no idea. But I can tell you how you won’t do it: if you write something that doesn’t move you, that doesn’t do anything for you other than to reaffirm just how clever you really are, the chances of it moving someone else beyond that same level (”Boy, isn’t this writer clever!”)
is pretty much nil. There is a danger in becoming melodramatic or overly sentimental, and an even greater danger in being called melodramatic or sentimental by those too jilted by their haze of cleverness to respond emotionally to anything, but the reward is that every now and then, when you least expect it, a reader drops you an email to say, “Your story made me cry, man. Thanks.” Or, “You had me laughing so hard I nearly peed my pants.” It’s what I reach for.
Do I fail? Oh yeah, big time, far more often than I succeed, but I keep reaching. It’s why I write.

You made me laugh.

You made me cry.

For me, there’s no better review than that, and none that’s necessary.

Well, I’ve started a blog. I mentioned this to my wife the other night and she said, “Why do you need a blog?” Note that there was a lot of emphasis on the word “you,” and I took this to mean that other people needed a blog, much more interesting people, naturally, but a fairly boring person like myself didn’t need one. Well, she may not have meant it that way, but if she did she’s right: I probably am boring (which is the chief reason I write fiction, so I can pretend I’m much more interesting than I actually am), but I’m just stubborn enough to try this thing anyway. Hey, if even the Pope has a blog, why not me?

That said, it’s hard to write about my life at all without occasionally mentioning people in my life. There’s only so much I can say about the time I spend alone in the car commuting to work. (Today’s road kill count: 3.) So if you’re that annoying guy at the post office who smells like my sock drawer, and you recognize yourself here, I’m sorry. But I am a writer, you know. It’s all grist for the mill.

Anyway, brief introductions. My name is Scott William Carter. I can’t imagine you coming to this blog without knowing my name, but when one says “brief introductions,” it’s pretty hard to start any other way. I’m a professional fiction writer. This means I write fiction for money. I write fiction for lots of other reasons, too, of course, but because my eventual goal is to make a living writing fiction, money has to be one of the primary motivations. I’ve sold close to twenty short stories to a variety of markets, all of which are listed on my website. After spending years working on my craft with short fiction, I’ve been spending more time on novels — which goes back to that money thing. Though short stories are my first love, and undoubtedly always will be, it’s really hard to make a living at this unless you write novels. That said, I love everything about the craft of writing fiction. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing this, because there are lots of easier ways to make a living you know.

I’ve titled this blog “On Reading and Writing,” and most of my posts will have something to do with those two subjects, but when you’re a writer, everything is about writing in one way or another, so that’s a pretty broad canvas. I might mention exciting news regarding my fiction, works in progress, good books or stories read, and insights into the human condition. That last category will probably be the most rare, because, frankly, I barely understand myself let alone the human condition, but I’ll do the best I can. I know a lot of people post daily in their blogs, but I probably won’t be doing that. With a full time day job, a wife and two-year-old, and various other things that take up my time, I channel most of my remaining energy into my fiction. But I’ll drop by when I can. I don’t have a comments section because I’m not sure I have time to monitor it, but if you want to say hi, send me in an email (scott@scottwilliamcarter.com). I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. Just realized that my first post was on a Friday the 13th. Hmm . . .